The Britt Hermes Story

Russell Tomes - 1 August 2019

Britt Hermes is a former naturopath who left her profession, and now works actively with the science community to educate the public on the realities and failings of naturopathy. She earned her naturopathy ‘degree’ at Bastyr University in 2011 and went on to complete a one-year naturopathic “residency” at a private clinic in Seattle. After a few years of practising naturopathy in Arizona and around the US, she writes that she retired from her profession with a bang, and now lives in Germany, where she is currently a doctoral student at Kiel University.

Leaving her job with a bang is correct! In her own words: “In the spring of 2014, I discovered that my boss, also a naturopath, had been importing and injecting a non-FDA approved medication called ‘Ukrain’ to cancer patients. I resigned from his practice and reported him to the Arizona naturopathic medicine board and the state attorney general. During my final meeting with him, my former boss informed me that he knew he was operating in the “grey zone” and that this was common in the naturopathic profession.” https://www.naturopathicdiaries.com/.

When a former president of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians recommended that she not report her boss to the authorities, she says this cemented her decision to depart.

Britt continues: “Naturopathy is not what I was led to believe. The profession functions as a system of indoctrination based on discredited ideas about health and medicine, full of pseudoscientific rhetoric and loaded with ineffective and dangerous practices.” It would be hard to describe naturopathy more clearly than that, even if naturopathy is “veiled in good intention.”

Her story would have been an exemplary one if it stopped right there, but there were some shocks in store.

Britt came to international attention a few years later in September 2017, when Arizona naturopath, Colleen Huber, sued her for defamation over opinions about Huber’s so-called natural cancer treatments and research.

Huber, who calls herself a cancer researcher, runs the ‘Nature Works Best Cancer Clinic’ in Tempe, Arizona, USA. She does not use conventional chemotherapy or radiation, but treats cancer with intravenous baking soda, vitamin C, and other “natural” substances, while instructing patients to cut out sugar from their diets. In her blog, Britt says Huber thinks sugar feeds cancer https://tinyurl.com/yxmvt8c3, and continues: “Huber appears to be a cancer quack.” https://tinyurl.com/ybsjxe7o

The lawsuit was seen as a ‘SLAPP’ (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), a legal attempt to silence Britt, and prevent her from criticising Huber’s work. Wikipedia defines ‘SLAPP’ as a lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defence until they abandon their criticism or opposition.

Lawsuits designed to silence scientific criticism have a chilling effect, and have serious implications for the scientific community as a whole.

Faced with potentially ruinous legal costs, Britt’s plight was highlighted by Australian Skeptics, which started a fundraising campaign to help with the defence. The skeptical community from all around the world stepped up, and, incredibly, raised over AUD$80,000 within the first 9 days.

The case was successfully defended and concluded on May 24, 2019, when the District Court of Kiel, Germany, ruled against Colleen Huber.

This is a great win for science and reason, and, like other successfully defended lawsuits, is a well-deserved kick in the guts for nonsense and quackery.

Other well-known recipients of SLAPP lawsuits include British physicist and science advocate Simon Singh, Australian physician Ken Harvey, British blogger Andy Lewis, and American Steven Novella of the SGU podcast.

Simon Singh was sued in 2008 by the British Chiropractic Association over an article in the Guardian newspaper in which he criticised chiropractors for claiming they can treat a range of issues simply by manipulation of the spine. He said these interventions were “bogus”, with “not a jot of evidence.” https://tinyurl.com/y6yyakbo.

The case, which caused much public concern, was successfully defended by Simon Singh. The aftermath resulted in the notoriously difficult libel laws in the UK being replaced with the Defamation Act 2013. Under the new law, claimants must now show that they suffer serious harm before the court will accept the case; with additional protections in the form of defences due to truth, honest opinion, public interest, and scientific criticisms. https://tinyurl.com/yyp6puqo.

Ken Harvey successfully defended being sued in 2011 for libel by weight loss company ‘Sensaslim’ for bringing awareness about the company’s false medical claims.

Andy Lewis was sued in 2014 for defamation, and other allegations, for his criticisms about Steiner schools. Andy won his case as well.

American neurologist Steven Novella, along with the many organisations and institutions associated with him, was sued by Edward Tobinick for libel and false advertising after Novella criticised Tobinick’s claims that the drug ‘perispinal etanercept’ could successfully be used to treat a variety of neurological conditions. Novella won the case in 2015.

If you attend the NZ Skeptics conference in Christchurch at the end of November this year, you can ask Steven all about it!

Nevertheless, these victories came at a great price. The legal costs for all of them were substantial.

But wait, there’s still more about the Britt Hermes story!

It appears that Huber also conducted an insidious campaign of cybersquatting on web domains in Britt’s name.

Cybersquatting is the term used where a name or a well-known brand is registered as a web domain, usually with the malicious intention of reselling at a profit, to trade off the goodwill of a trademark, or to harm the victim person or trademark. Sadly, cybersquatting is all too common, but there are some protections, including an international arbitration forum, and laws in some countries to defend against malicious cybersquatting.

The web pages at ‘brittmariehermes.com’, ‘brittmariehermes.org’, ‘BMHermes.com’ and ‘BrittHermes.com’ did, for a while, redirect the viewer to the the homepage of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, or to ‘tribute’ pages which supported naturopathy.

Not only was this obviously misdirecting and misinforming viewers, it would have been quite intentionally intimidating for Britt to discover that her name was being misused. Britt writes that she was quite upset when she discovered what was happening.

Clever sleuthing by Britt allowed her to discover the name of the domain owners and the companies they were hiding behind, enabling her to gain back control over all the maliciously-created web domains, and, so in this case, there is a second positive outcome.

Britt Hermes was joint winner of the 2018 John Maddox Prize, awarded by ‘Sense about Science’. One of the award judges, Colin Blakemore, stated that “Hermes’s story is one of exceptional courage”. Her web site, ‘naturopathicdiaries.com’ was given the 2016 Ockham Award for Best Blog by ‘The Skeptic’ magazine.

We should note that under the New Zealand Medicines Act 1981, Section 58, parts 1a and 1b , it is illegal to claim, indicate, or suggest that anyone can prevent, alleviate, or cure any disease, or prevent, reduce, or terminate any physiological condition in the schedules of serious diseases and conditions. The schedules includes cancer, arthritis, diabetes, leukemia, tumors, amongst many, many other conditions. The Society for Science-based Healthcare is a group of volunteer New Zealand consumer advocates, scientists, and medical professionals, who work to protect your right to make informed decisions about your healthcare.

When cancer quacks, like Colleen Huber, attempt to start up here, and, sadly, they do from time to time, the members of the Society for Science-based Healthcare are some of the first on the front-lines, with the Medicines and other Acts in hand, helping to coordinate submissions to the Advertising Standards Authority, Medsafe, and the Commerce Commission in an effort to keep this quackery out of our society.

If you have some expertise in any relevant area, or if you are just keen to help, the friendly people in the SBH welcome new members, and have a wealth of knowledge and resources to help get you started.

References:

Medicines act: https://tinyurl.com/y486lbh6

The Society for Science-based Healthcare https://sbh.nz